A Peek Into Yahoo! BrowserPlus

There's been a bit of speculation about BrowserPlus, the mysterious new platform from Yahoo!. Today we remove that veil of mystery to show you directly what it is, what it does, and why we can't wait to hear what you think.

BrowserPlus is a platform for extending the Web: an end-user installs it and a developer uses its features through a small JavaScript library. Some of the features that exist in the platform today include:

Drag-and-drop from the desktop

Client-side image manipulation (cropping, rotation & filters)

Desktop notifications

The most unique attribute of BrowserPlus is its ability to update and add new services on the fly without a browser restart or even reloading the page! For users, this means no more interruptions or installers to run. We handle the complexity of software distribution and updates. For developers, it means you can check for and activate new services with a single function call (pending user approval, of course). BrowserPlus is dynamic, allowing us to implement the standards of tomorrow while enabling fun and playful web applications along the way.

A small group of folks has been working on BrowserPlus in a dark room for about a year now. Getting this platform outside the walls of Yahoo! and into the developer community is extremely important to us. We're eager to give you something you can touch and feel and respond to, even if it's not quite ready to use on your own site yet.

So why just a peek?

We talk more about our reasons for releasing a sneak peekin our FAQ. The gist of it is: We firmly believe that the best tools are the result of use and refinement -- and people like you (yes, YOU!) telling us what sucks and what rocks. We hope that through use and input from the community we can build a platform that matters. Hop over to theofficial Yahoo! BrowserPlus website and check it out. If you like what you see, and want to build something NOW, instead of waiting for the official developer launch, please get in touch. We'd love to partner with you to provide the support and tools you need to implement your great idea for a BrowserPlus service or app. just drop us a line.

Thanks for reading! We look forward to your feedback and to working with ya :) .